


golden stitches

by daddychilton



Category: True Detective
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddychilton/pseuds/daddychilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>first of all I just want to apologize for writing this because I don't think I captured Rust Cohle like I wanted, so I'm sorry this is so shitty</p>
<p>basically this is Rust and his daughter</p>
            </blockquote>





	golden stitches

The envelope’s edges were worried by rough and calloused fingers. Its glue was coming undone, but he didn’t want to open it just yet. Rust believed seeing the photo inside would change his life, though he knew it would probably be for the better. Claire had seen her already, but she hadn’t told Rust that it was a girl. She would let him find out on his own time.

Rust turned the envelope over and over in his hands and stuck a thumb under the flap. It slid open with a sigh. A black and white Polaroid peeked out at him, and he pulled it out. He saw everything in that photo: a baby that was _his_ that he could hold in his arms; a child that he and Claire would raise; a person that would change them for the better; a person they would love more than each other, more than themselves.

Claire walked into the living room where Rust sat, his hand covering his mouth and tears sliding down his face. She sat next to him on the couch and put an arm around his shoulder. He fell into her a cried against her neck. His hand rubbed her belly and he planted kisses on the hollows of her jaw. She brushed her fingers across his cheek and his dark eyes found her own and he choked out a smile and a laugh.

Nothing mattered except for the photo in his hand and the woman in his arms.

He thought back to his days in Alaska, those sunless days that held him with cold arms and fed his isolation. He was so lost until he met Claire. She’d sewn up the black hole that had been his soul with golden thread.

“Love you,” he said, voice husky and scarred like he’d swallowed fire.

She didn’t say anything, just stroked his hair and held him against her side smiling.

* 

The first time he held Sophia Cohle in his arms, Rust thought he knew what Heaven could be. When she opened her eyes and he saw Claire’s bright blue ones staring back at him, he wept. He cradled her against his chest, and she giggled. She weighed in at 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and he thought every ounce of her existence was borne of that same golden thread that Claire had used to stitch his sadness. Sophia was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he wanted to know what she would be like. He wanted to know everything about this new person, this new, beautiful person that lit up his world with a single coo.

Claire was asleep in her hospital bed, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She’d yelled and cursed him for putting that baby in her, she’d called him a “cunt” and said fuck enough times for the nurses to blush. He’d been so worried about complications that he hadn’t thought about how funny it had been to hear his wife call him a cunt.

He started laughing, and whispered to his daughter, “Your mama thinks I’m a cunt, sweetheart.”

Sophia smiled so big he could see her toothless gums, her eyes crinkling up in pure bliss.

Rust didn’t know it, but Claire had woken up and heard every word. If he’d looked at her, he would’ve seen her smile.

 

 

 


End file.
